Virginia requires candidates to obtain 10,000 signatures from registered voters, with at least 400 signatures coming from each
of the commonwealth's 11 congressional districts. Prior to this year, these numbers were not hard to hit.
Hell, even Keyes got on the ballot back in 2008.
The difference is that the Virginia GOP changed the process this year:
Virginia’s GOP
Primary Ballot: Romney, Paul… And That’s It. - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot - National Review Online
Those signature requirements, by the way, were 10,000 signatures including 500 in each of the state’s congressional
districts. What apparently tripped up Gingrich and Perry was the requirement that petition signers list their
addresses.
A Gingrich campaign official prior to the move by the RPV said the problem is how the rules are set up, arguing that the
party is, for apparently the first time, cross-checking the addresses that signature-givers gave
against the electronic voter database file for accuracies. A name without a proper address match was tossed, the official said.
“What one needs to ask is ‘what percentage of valid, registered voters self-identify a current address that matches voter rolls
that the voter might not have updated since 2008”? Are you 100% certain that your address you and all of your
neighbors matches current voter rolls? It strikes me that this is not an accurate means to identify registered voters signing
for ANY candidate, not just Gingrich,” the official wrote.
But guess what? If you turned in a magic number of signatures, the state would not even validate ANY of the signatures you
turned in:
VA Ballot Access – No Way to
Choose a President | RedState
The Washington Examiner ran a gleeful hit piece Friday night quoting an anonymous “source with knowledge of the
Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) petition signature verification process” who said Perry was “dead on arrival” and didn’t
follow the “simple” rules required in VA...
The article also notes that the rules were sent to “all the Republican presidential campaigns” in March, but later admits that
Perry’s campaign may not have received the detailed instructions because he didn’t enter the race until August.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch informs us that the Romney campaign had their petitions personally delivered by none other than
Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, Romney’s VA campaign chairman. ...
The blog goes on to describe the process of gaining ballot access, which is likely the most burdensome in the country:
“A minimum of 10,000 petition signatures collected statewide, including at least 400 from each of its 11 congressional
districts. That’s hard enough. But then there are the additional restrictions: The petition circulators must be
registered or eligible to vote in Virginia. The signatures must be gathered using the State Board of Elections’ official
form, a two-page document which must be reproduced as double-sided. (Single-sided stapled forms are not accepted.)
Signatures must be collected on forms that are specific to each city, county and congressional district. Only “
qualified” voters may sign a petition. And every single petition form must be sworn and notarized.”
The blogger claims to know top political consultants who turned town lucrative offers working on presidential campaigns because
they thought the task could not be accomplished.
To make matters worse, the Republican Party of Virginia appears to have rigged the system in favor of candidates who were able
to gather a comfortable excess of names on petitions. Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, Pat Mullins, issued the
following (undated) directive:
“Any candidate who submits at least 15,000 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions
statewide and has at least 600 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions from each of the 11 Congressional
Districts shall be deemed to have met the threshold for qualification and will be certified (provided, of course, that
other requirements of State law have also been met)”
“If any candidate submits fewer than 15,000 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions statewide or fewer than 600
signatures of registered voters on valid petitions in one or more of the 11 Congressional Districts, the Republican Party of
Virginia will individually verify signatures until the 10,000 signature statewide threshold and/or 400 per Congressional
district is met.”
In other words, if a candidate can gather 50% more signatures than actually required, the standard for those
signatures is lower than for the signatures of candidates who gather 14,999 signatures or less. It appears that
the Romney campaign, which boasted of gathering “some 16,000? signatures was able to escape the scrutiny of having every
signature individually verified.
The chairman for the Romney campaign is also the Lt Govenor of Virginia!
Virginia and Washington, DC endorsements of Mitt Romney
Bolling ties 2013 hopes to Romney -
Washington Times
Yeah, no conflict of interest there! Perry was not notified of the state requirements, too damn bad for him! Since he cant read
Bollings mind thousands of miles away, he is obviously not qualified to run! And Gingriches signatures were not valid,
obviously since he didnt stuff enough of them to get over a 15,000 count! Yerp, the more you cheat the less scrutiny you get in
Virginia.
The GOP establishment has totally destroyed one Tea Party candidate after another: Palin, Bachman, Perry, Cain, Gingrich is
sinking and the guns starting on Ron Paul now, whom the establishment apparently thinks is too extreme to really challenge
Romney.
They have a surprise coming. They are alienating more voters than votes they can steal, and even if Romney wins the nomination,
he will definately to lose to Obama because the GOP base, the social conservatives, are sick of the dirty tricks, the slander,
and the cronyism of the GOP establishment. After Obama wins re-election the social conservative and Tea Party groups will get
more funding than the GOP establishment ever dreamed of. They may try to go back and fight the rigged game the GOP has now, but
my bet is that they will split off and form a new party.
It worked in Canada and there is no reason to believe it cannot work in the USA.
